What an amazing year! We were blessed with the birth of our second son in February. While I always had intentions of developing websites, InACents officially started in January, and has grown into a tremendous and incredible project that I love more and more each day. Prior to starting the site, I probably would have never guessed I would be writing everyday as it was never anything I really enjoyed. InACents has really changed that, and now I love coming up with new posts and sharing information. Then in July we purchased our dream home, and officially became landlords for our previous home. Along the way we have learned and made some incredible financial decisions. In addition all the points and miles we earned throughout the year will allow us to share some incredible travel experiences, which we will share more about in 2012.
This is my monthly recap where I look at what reward programs we were able to add miles or points to over the previous period. While we continue to be all about ways to earn really cheap or free airline miles and hotel reward points, we have shifted our “collecting” mindset into spending over the past months. What fun is earning all these rewards if you never spend them. With all the really great credit card rewards being offered for signing up for new cards, airlines have slowly been increasing their redemption rates and/or making it more difficult to spend those rewards. So we are trying to use some of our stash to help plan the next family vacation. To read proof how collecting miles/points can work for your family, read our post on how we are going to Hawaii (and Disneyland) for $30 in total cost for the flights.
[easychart type=”line” height=”300″ width=”350″ title=”Mile/Point Status (As of 12/31/11)” groupnames=”Delta,United,Continental,USAirways,American,Hilton,Intercontinental,SPG” valuenames=”Jan2011,Feb2011,Mar2011,Apr2011,May2011,June2011,July2011,Aug2011,Sept2011,Oct2011,Nov2011,Dec2011″ group1values=”69447,69447,70447,70947,70947,70947,71007,71097,71197,71287,71377,71465″ group2values=”100043,100043,108043,108059,108059,109059,109059,109059,110115,58569,58569,58570″ group3values=”67333,67333,67333,67333,67333,67433,68433,68433,68433,0,0,45040″ group4values=”8018,8020,11759,13778,13778,13778,13899,13977,14090,28713,41516,46578″ group5values=”0,300,600,600,600,4600,6500,9500,17000,19500,20000,20500″ group6values=”11679,11679,21979,24479,24479,26297,26297,26297,26297,26547,26547,26547″ group7values=”29271,29271,29271,29271,167571,169571,173571,173571,174071,174071,174071,1071″ group8values=”0,0,0,0,0,0,16,34,294,294,360,360″]
The following is a brief summary of the things we have done in the past month to build up our accounts.
Delta SkyMiles– Audience Rewards trivia questions in all three of our accounts.
United Mileage Plus- We had some strange 1 mile credit that I am unsure what it was really about.
Continental OnePass- There is a big jump in the amount of miles in our accounts due to all the Continental credit cards we opened since October. Immediately after the miles posted, we turned around and purchase with miles airfare for my in-laws to join us in Hawaii in 2012 (i.e. free babysitting!). So we still have some miles left over in our accounts from the transactions.
US Airways Dividend Miles– My wife’s final bonus round of miles posted the Grand Slam promotion after I had to follow-up with Thanks Again on some missing miles. In addition, Audience Rewards points posted to each of our accounts.
American Airlines AAdvantage– Our son finally received his 500 miles from the appraiser promotion earlier this year. Now both of our sons have received these free promotional miles.
Hilton HHonors– No change.
Priority Club Rewards- We used all but 71 of our points to redeem for free stays in Hawaii next summer. Then we received 1,000 free points for the second time in December for watching a promotional video.
Starwood Preferred Guest– Unfortunately, none of our points have posted this month from Audience Rewards, but they do appear to lag behind others, so I am sure the points will post in January.
Note, we also have reward accounts with AirTran, Southwest, Frontier, Choice Hotels, Wyndham Rewards, and various other programs, but since we do not really use them, there is little advantage in including them in this list.
The point of showing these reports each month is to show you that every little bit of miles and point collecting can really add up to big rewards. It is never to late to sign-up and start collecting for your future travel needs. Thanks for reading! Save Money, Travel More.
